The Sacramento Kings are a dizzying, dysfunctional mess inside and out.

Their best player and coach have openly feuded for months, culminating in a profanity-laced tirade this week, with some reports indicating that George Karl’s hot seat is getting hotter by the minute. (Other reports dispute that notion.) They have an odd mix of young, high-quality prospects (Willie Cauley-Stein, Ben McLemore) and veterans past their prime (Rajon Rondo, Rudy Gay). Their owner has spearheaded multiple coaching changes and front office turnover, and reportedly made multiple decisions without consulting the team’s minority owners. Their aforementioned best player is a seven-foot behemoth with deft footwork that struggled to hit shots at the basket heading into Saturday night.

So it’s hard to glean too much from a solid performance from a team that makes atmospheric noise seem predictable, especially in a game that seemed wholly predicated on which DeMarcus Cousins or Rajon Rondo would show up on a possession-to-possession basis.

Unfortunately for the Nets, the Cousins they didn’t want to see showed up for about 18 second-half minutes, and in that time it was like watching a wrecking ball take down a screen door. He got nearly any look he pleased, and the Nets were powerless to defend it.

Cousins fouled out in the last 43 seconds, and his absence gave the Nets a sudden inspiring — and frankly, amazing — shot at victory.

After an improbable turn of events that featured Rajon Rondo, with the Kings up two, throwing an inbounds pass into Rondae Hollis-Jefferson’s chest that then bounced back off Rondo’s leg, the Nets had a shot with 1.1 seconds left to win or send the game to overtime.

But with Joe Johnson — who had hit two three-pointers already in the quarter — wide open beyond the perimeter, inbounder Wayne Ellington tossed the pass off Willie-Cauley Stein’s outstretched wing, and the Nets fell just short.